I won't back down
by ar-men15
Summary: Henrik is struggling with his pain, guilt and demons after the break up with Saga. A work in three parts
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Part 1

The gate of hell is in front of me.  
Inviting.  
Tempting.  
It is open and I see across it a place where I can find peace.  
It's dark and cold but I feel I can get into it, for ever.  
Because I cannot feel anything now.  
My hands don't touch, my eyes don't see, my lungs don't breathe and my body is no more alive.  
It's the darkness of my house that envelopes me so tight.  
It's my personal hell.  
I've kept this house intact for years, like I was not living here for real, like I was only controlling it, not moving, not dreaming, not wanting to live anymore if my family was not with me.  
And they came to talk, they stayed to keep me alive.  
Alice, did she already know she was gone?  
Is she waiting for me on the other side, the day I drive too druggy, that I fall in a trap, that I am in the line of a bullet, so simply, no pain at all, just cross the gate once and forever.  
I'm a fool.  
I know it.  
I've let her in this house. In me, in my brain, in my body, in my heart.  
It's hard now to cut all the pieces of her from me.  
I need a precise surgery, sharp knife, blood and all.  
She's cut off my child from her.  
Five minutes of routine for the doctor. Sedation, antibiotic, abortion, painkiller.  
A life has been killed. My life.  
She didn't care if the baby was mine or of a perfect stranger.  
Maybe she's already done it years ago, there are women who use abortion as a kind of protection, I know.  
The truth is I don't know anything about her, apart what seldom slips from her lips.  
She lied to me. She was listening to the changes in her body. She refused sleeping pills. She stopped snugs. She wrote the list of food to avoid.  
Oh, how good she played on me.  
I was deaf, dumb, blind.  
I fell in her trap so wholly, lost in a joy I'd never hope to feel again.  
I was happy, so happy, for one single perfect day.  
Things will go well, she'll live with me, she'll bear our child, she'll see me again because we'll be parents.  
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.  
She said she loves me and her words have only further push me toward the abyss.  
How could she love me and hurt me at the same time?  
I want to bang my head against a wall until my brain spills out from the wound.  
I need air. Now.  
I hate this house, I thought it was a haven for my family, it's my dungeon now.  
Out of here, out soon, out now.  
I drive on autopilot, my work is all I got now, maybe it can betray me with a much desired bullet and I get the end to my pain.  
What's the point of living, having lost all my offspring?  
I'm a failure, a complete one.  
I trusted them both, let them take care of my children and both have destroyed everything.  
Alice.  
Saga.  
I was wrong twice. Why did I allow myself the risk to love again?  
It was an unplanned love, but it grew on me faster that a summer storm.  
Eight years ago I had hopes, I was younger, after the shock I thought I'd find them, soon, somehow.  
I imagined in a year I'd find the answer.  
Two, four, six, eight years with nothing.  
I had pills and the club and my life become a living nightmare, until she came.  
Beautiful, uncomplicated, understanding.  
Everything I need to find the truth.  
I was loosing hope, my sleeping pills had to be stronger and stronger to conquer my demons.  
I lied to my doctor, telling him about frequents night shifts and the need to grab a fast rest every time I could.  
He believed me, also when I told him I forgot sleeping pills in a hotel room during a case away or spilled them on the floor. To get more sooner, to hide the abuse. How easy.  
I can talk to people, they use me in hostage crisis but I cannot talk to those close to me.  
If I had told Saga how I did feel about her and our child maybe she'd have understood something more about me. Or she'd run away faster than her car. But I could have tried.  
I'm over forty, a widow, an ex father, just wanting what I longed for eight long years.  
I remember the night she tried to kill herself, my crazy drive across the bridge, looking for her, desperate I've let her down.  
I didn't lied, she never asked me about the drugs. And I wanted to stop, tried to stop, after I opened up myself to her.  
If I had the strength to tell her all the truth, like the first time she entered my house.  
If.  
If.  
A life of if. And I cannot bear it anymore.  
She had split me in two, half I hate her, half I hate myself.  
For hoping, for trusting her.  
Saga never lied to somebody, how could she lie to me?  
Why did she tell me she was carrying my redemption if she had already decided to erase it?  
A crazy part of my mind was sure it would have been a boy.  
I didn't know where it came from, but I imagined to play with him in the park with a ball.  
To buy little soldiers and build Lego cars.  
I wanted that boy more than my life, I'd accepted to die myself, if I had to choose.  
He'd lived, hopefully a better life than mine; a part of me would have remained alive in him.  
I could keep on, thinking my girls were dead, because he was my hope.  
Now all my life has been drained from my body,  
I'm a dried tree, one with no roots and no branches to grow again.  
I'm gone, forever.  
I'm dead inside.  
I can walk. A foot after the other, endless sequence.  
I can eat. Mouthfuls of meaningless food, without taste.  
I can work. Little white candies keep me up all day again. I'm a good detective, I have proofs, I find the link for the case.  
I can screw. Pick up the first blonde I find in the club, take her in our bed, to erase Saga's scent.  
It isn't love, neither sex, nor lust, just the way to deceive myself I don't care anymore about Saga.  
This body of mine is empty inside.  
A shell with no pearl.  
A heart with no blood.

I see the woman hanging from the door, her pulse is gone, I heard a movement inside the house, I notice the red light before the gun shoot.  
A trap.  
Bullet come to me, I'm ready, take me.

Actions


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2

I turn toward the door in the hospital room, eager to get out of here, better my useless life than this aseptic room.  
Here she comes.  
The same clothes, the same face, the same woman I don't understand.  
Does Lillian really send her to pick me up?  
She knows I refuse to interact with Saga, that I'm still on the Thormond case for her sake only. The way Saga is looking at me since we parted tells me she is messed up, like me, so I treat her badly, I want her to feel my pain. A subtle, cruel pleasure in doing so. Probably she cannot feel, I don't care, I insist, I continue.  
What's Lillian up to?  
Does she thinks I'm into drugs again and Saga is the only one who can uncover me?  
Saga's already done the maths, I'm sure, I had sex with a woman and she deduces I started again drugs.  
I don't want to see her, hear her, talk to her, touch her.  
I've buried Saga like I buried Alice, a heavy stone on both graves.  
Or is Saga on my case again and wants to talk, telling me inconsequential things?  
She announced me Alice had a lover,  
Another brick in the wall of lies and betrayals they are building around me.  
I'm going to send her away, I haven't told her I was shoot, last week I'd have called her first thing, before the ambulance, just to hear her voice, to have her with me in the ER.  
Doctors asking me if my next of kin is the name on the card, Saga Noren, and me telling them we've parted. I'm completely alone.  
Her steps approaching, something in her eyes, I see it.  
I know her, I can try do deny it but she can be on open book to me when she lets her defences down.  
Like that brief moment in bed, just before she comes, and I see her, all of her.  
Why this memory, now?  
Her body under mine, her scent, her moans, how connected we were, before.  
She's telling me something, I hear a name only. The very name I need.  
Astrid.  
She s' found Astrid, alive. Glory to the Lord, alive.  
And Anna? Where is Anna?  
Dead.  
The ground rises and fall in a second under my feet.  
I have gained and lost.  
I forget everything from this moment on, especially the pain in my leg.  
Only later, in my nocturnal vigil, I got my memories back, the ride in her car, the way Saga looks at me, Linn and the swat team, the fog around me and my baby coming out of it.  
I'm in another hospital room, for the second night in a row.  
I'm not alone, Astrid is sleeping in the white bed, they gave her a mild sedative, I refused one. I don't want to miss a moment with her, every second is precious.  
Afraid if I close my eyes she'll disappear.  
I look at her, changed from the little girl I left a distant morning into a teenager, thin and tall, Alice's portrait.  
She's closer to a woman than a child now.  
How can I manage her? I've been a father too absent, too busy with my work to take care of my daughters and now in this hospital bed a girl with short hair and lovely eyes is all I have.  
What if I fail again? This is my very last chance, I know now. This is the only chance I want with her.  
I want to touch her, hold her hand, but she retracted hers from under mine.  
Like Saga did in prison.  
Will Astrid accept me? Will she recognize me as her father?  
Saga said the truth, she lived with Frank more than with me.  
Saga.  
How bad I feel about you now.  
I want you, now, but I can't be with you.  
Astrid needs me.  
I need her and I need you.  
Do you need me, too?  
Do you still love me?  
Your love has saved me, again, and I refused to recognize it.  
My anger got the best of me.  
I'm sorry, Saga, come to me, call me, please.  
Love me.


	3. Chapter 3

They say happiness is a state of mind.  
A suspect said it was a state of well being regardless of external circumstances  
I'm not good at defining things, Saga's sure better than me, she provides exact dictionary definitions.  
I barely know what I feel, except that I feel.  
Again.  
After an eternity of pain, guilt, grief and the hardest loneliness a free man can bear.  
I see children playing in the street with no more tears in my eyes.  
I smell the last chill of winter in frosty March mornings and the promise of bloom in early spring flowers.  
I hear a voice calling me dad, the most precious word she can pronounce, I rejoice I'm not alone.  
I taste the sweetness of a big cake decorated with chocolate and strawberries.  
I touch her thin arms, each bone of her back, I caress her little hand with the livid of the iv needle still visible.  
I touch the softest lips I've ever met, I kiss them, eyes closed, all my body concentrate in my mouth, tongue, lips, I place soft kisses on her facial scar, to confirm her how my need and my love are strong.  
I hug them both, one in each arm, in front of a table with bright birthday decorations and cakes, pastries, drinks , family and friends gathered around it.  
My mother, still unbelieving, eyes wet every other hour.  
Lilllian, remembering she was the good mother at the christening.  
My brother with wife, son and daughter, his hand heavy on my shoulder, coming back from Berlin just for me.  
John and Barbara from the office, their help I thank every day.  
I firmly hold my girls.  
Well, better say my daughter and my woman.  
My family again.  
One still knows so little about me, this father from the past, believed dead.  
How can you explain certain things to your own flesh and blood after an absence so long?  
What I did and I am ashamed of, the drugs, the sleeping pills, the nights of casual sex.  
The other says how much I've changed in a month, and I think she is right.  
It is difficult to see changes from the inside, and I trust her ability to read me from outside.  
Transparent like glass, opaque only once, when I relapsed in drugs and sex, an episode I try to evaluate in the new context of our lives.  
I split my time between them, I take care of two women instead of one.  
Each needs a part of me.  
I'm careful to help them interact, I need them both, I want us to live under the same roof.  
Every day is a challenge, a delicate touch in a new drawing we're creating together.  
I'm back at the NA meetings, constantly, I'm talking with a counsellor, to understand better my past.  
My faults.  
My mistakes.  
My weaknesses.  
Saga listens to me, always.  
She went with me at the grave, the small red tombstone; I've made a change only, added our family name, so Anna will be remembered by whoever pass by.  
Astrid is my hope, Saga is my rock.  
If I think back to the first day we met, the first words we spoke, the first case we worked together. I see how things have changed, are changing day by day.  
What our future will bring, I don't know, maybe the miracle of life will happen, again.  
Because we've talked on the phone while she was away.  
We've looked into each other's eyes when she returned.  
We've spent a night asking and giving forgiveness for my words during that awful night.  
Then she give me permission to undress her; for the first time I peel off her every piece of clothing with infinite care, a gesture precious and holy, revealing her body to me and offering her mine.  
Saga is scared of me, of what I can became with my daughter back. The traces of jealousy, of insecurity.  
I swear I'm the same man, the one who got her for two years. She opposes being a father will make me different. Saga's afraid, all of this is so new for her.  
Asking her to open up a little to me, each passing day, building a connection. She knows so many things, her brain is so full of info and she fails to use them when it comes to feelings and people.  
It will take time, a very long time, I'll be there to help her.  
My words soothe her fears while my hands caress hers, slowly, following the texture of her skin, the contour of her veins, the hard points at the base of her fingers.  
I never imagined touching a hand was so intimate, more than intercourse.  
Because now it isn't just sex, I've made my declaration, I've kissed her and asked to make love to her, for the first time.  
I do things.  
I cook new meals when my baby asks me something special.  
I observe her while she draws and we go out in my car to find interesting places.  
I look at her in adoration, trying to forget the time spent apart.  
But every night, behind closed doors, I'm only her man.  
If she wants me, I'm here to please her.  
If she talks to me, I listen and answer.  
If I wake up sweating from my recurring nightmare, she puts a hand on my arm and tells me Brian is dead.  
I feel.  
I feel again what the word living means.  
They are my world, what I failed and can try again to build.  
My life has a new meaning, because I have both of them, now.


End file.
